by Laken Cane
“The master is coming,” I murmured. “Go away, Leo.”
He didn’t hesitate. He jogged away and melted into the shadows, but I knew that no matter what happened that night, or where I went, Leo Trask would be lurking in the darkness, watching out for me.
Chapter Six
TESTED
Amias raked my face with a stare full of glass shards. I almost physically felt his regard, and I shuddered beneath it. His stare was heavy and warm and sharp, trickling over my psyche, cutting into me.
He opened his arms and only then did I move. I stepped into his embrace and wrapped my arms around him, a quiet whine escaping my mouth, and I pressed my face to his warm throat.
“Good,” he murmured. “Better.”
It had taken me many unsuccessful attempts to maintain control when I was in my maker’s arms. I wanted only to be devoured by him. I wanted him to feed me, and I wanted him to bite me.
I wanted to taste him, to hold him, to open myself to him.
And in the beginning, I had cried with my need to be physically part of him. I hadn’t dealt well with the horror of that separation.
But I was growing, changing, and becoming—once again—my own person.
Sort of.
“Master,” I whispered.
His body trembled. “I will never tire of hearing that.”
“Then I will never stop saying it.”
His sigh was gentle. “You will, my love. And you will resent me for creating such need, such submission. But as I told you…” He waited.
“I will always be your heart,” I said, obediently.
“Yes,” he whispered, and kissed my forehead. “You will.” He tightened his embrace for one quick second, then set me away from him. “Now. Tell me.”
I ignored my need to touch him. That need was huge, but it didn’t consume me as it once had.
We both disregarded the few humans who walked by us. They paused, some of them, curious and nosy, but eventually they slipped away, carrying on with their night.
“I was tempted,” I told Amias. “I was offered blood. I didn’t take it.” I lifted my chin. “I’m stronger.”
His smile was slow, his dark eyes glittering beneath the streetlights. “You are stronger than you know. I have made many vampires. You…” His smile dropped, suddenly, chilling me.
“What, Master? What’s wrong?”
But he only shook off whatever was bothering him and took my hand. “The giant was here again.”
I nodded, but said nothing.
“If not for his interference—”
“No,” I said, resolute. “I would not have fed. I would not have taken their offers.”
“You cannot be tested if he continues to interfere.” His voice was full of frustration, and panic tightened my belly as he turned toward the shadows from which Leo watched.
I was afraid Amias would challenge him, and I would be forced to hurt Leo to defend my beloved master. I would have. I would kill to protect him—from anyone.
But finally, for the first time, I did not want to.
Amias saw the change in my face. He read the thoughts in my mind as though I’d spoken them aloud. And suddenly, another change grew inside me. I didn’t want him to read me. I didn’t want my mind to be an open thing through which he might rummage anytime he wanted to pluck a thought from my head.
Yes, I was changing. And part of me grieved to see it.
No bloody tears rose in Amias’s eyes, but I felt his emotions as he felt mine. He grieved with me.
“I wanted the return of Trinity,” he murmured. “It had to be. But I mourn what I will lose.”
I cried out at the pain in his voice and unable to bear it, I fell to my knees and wrapped my arms around his legs. “I won’t leave you,” I swore. “I won’t ever leave you.”
He put his hand on my head, but didn’t urge me to stand. He remained silent, and that silence was loud. I was hurting him, and I would rather have died than cause him pain.
“Trinity,” someone said, his voice full of gravel. And anger, but not for me. Never for me.
Amias patted my head. “Get up, my love, and greet your raging werebull.”
He helped me stand, then we both turned to look at Angus Stark. Angus, my werebull. And Amias was right—Angus was raging.
But when wasn’t he?
Angus and I stared at each other for a few heavy seconds until finally, Amias broke the silence. “Two minutes,” he said, his voice calm but firm. “You agreed to leave her alone until she was ready for you. And I am not yet comfortable with being the focus of the city humans’ attentions.”
“I will take as long as I fucking want to take,” Angus growled, then calmed himself—with an obvious effort—when I clutched Amias’s arm and frowned.
“Angus?” I asked.
“Sweetheart. I—” He rubbed his face. “Are you okay, Trin?”
“I’m getting better,” I told him. “Stronger.” And then, surprising all three of us, I pulled away from the master and went to Angus.
He hesitated, unsure, then his stare softened as he gazed down into my upturned face. He held me to him, his arms like rigid bands across my back. “God,” he groaned. “Trin.” He buried his face in my hair.
And more of my resistance, the coldness, the vampireness, melted away.
“I’m here,” I murmured.
He lifted his face and over my head at Amias. “Did you tell her the executioners are coming?”
“I mentioned it.”
“Mention it again,” Angus bit out, furious, but his grip remained gentle as he held me. “She needs to come home before the bastards get here.”
Their conversation barely touched me. It awakened no curiosity inside me. I didn’t worry about executioners, though I knew what it meant that they were coming.
They wanted to kill the dragon.
But right then all I cared about was Angus’s warm hands on my body.
I’d needed his touch. I hadn’t realized it, but I’d needed it.
Still, my control was not strong. I darted out my tongue to taste his warm, fragrant skin, pressed my fingers to his pulse, and closed my eyes as his blood, his precious, tempting, deliciously fragrant blood, thundered through his body.
Oh, I wanted it.
How I wanted it.
I wanted him.
Not just because I was hungry. Not just because I was a vampire.
But because he was Angus. He was my…
“Alpha,” I murmured. “My alpha.”
He shuddered and tightened his arms enough to hurt me. “You’re back.” His voice hurt my heart. “You have your control, don’t you?”
“It’s coming,” I said.
“Trinity.” The vampire master grasped my upper arm and urged me away from Angus. “Do not tempt her further, Werebull. It is not time, and she is not ready. She is still changing.”
“Stop yanking at her,” Angus snarled, “and give us a minute.”
Amias was worried, and he was reluctant to let me go, but he would not argue with Angus. Despite the anger and fear and worry they felt, they loved each other.
And they loved me.
“Come home, Trin,” Angus said, when Amias backed away.
“Soon,” I promised. “Right now all I can think about is biting you. I’m not ready.”
But he disagreed. “You’re thinking about biting me. You’re not doing it.” He cupped the back of my head and eased my face to his chest. “But if you want to, I will be happy to let you.”
“That’s not the point,” I said, almost unable to get the words out. His smooth flesh was right there under the thin fabric of his shirt, warm and familiar and mine. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to taste him. My werebull.
He would taste like power. Like domination. He would taste like heaven.
“The point is,” he said, his voice rumbling beneath my ear, “that you want to, but you aren’t. You’re not a wild animal, Trin. Come the fuck h
ome.”
My body tightened. His voice was dim, insubstantial, and did nothing to distract me from my cravings. One taste. He’d said I could.
He was mine.
I could eat him if I wanted.
And I wanted.
I turned my head and scraped his flesh with my fangs, not enough to draw blood, but enough to let me know that I was still not fucking ready.
I threw myself away from him. “Go,” I muttered, desperate. “Please.”
He closed his eyes for a second, but he didn’t argue. “Soon then,” he whispered, and strode away.
I shook with need. My muscles knotted painfully as I restrained myself from running after him. And in the end, I would have gone after him.
I would have given in. I would have rushed through the night, thrown him to the ground and ravaged him, attacked him, drained him, but for Amias.
Something feral rose inside me, triggered by Angus’s scent, by the night, by my unending struggle to grow into something normal.
A low growl floated from between my lips, but even before the sound slithered out, Amias was aware.
I snarled, and the master grabbed me into the unbreakable restraints of his arms and bore me away. In seconds he was slamming me to the ground in an abandoned lot and pressing my baby fangs to his flesh.
“Feed, my love.”
He didn’t attempt to hide the satisfaction in his voice. I was not ready. Not ready to leave him, not ready to become independent, not ready to stop needing him.
And though he wanted his Trinity back, he was not ready to set me free.
“You’re mine,” he whispered, and then there was only the sound of my eager sucking as I pulled the master’s blood into my mouth.
But dimly, with a distant disconnect, I felt the half-giant, and I knew he’d followed. From the shadows he watched, and waited, and wondered, perhaps, what it would be like to have a woman need him as much as I needed the vampire master.
Chapter Seven
DEAD INSIDE
The next night was the same.
I was hungry, as always, but I would not eat. I would not kill.
I would gain my control.
I would prove myself worthy of once again taking the name Trinity Sinclair, and I would find my place in the society of Red Valley.
A familiar black car pulled to the curb, taking my attention from the noisy, bustling pedestrians. The sleek, purring car glistened with the mist of rain beneath the tall streetlights, and for a second I concentrated on the tightening of my stomach muscles.
It felt strange, almost painful, and distantly familiar. Then I realized I was nervous. Or uncomfortable. Or ashamed, maybe.
Frank Crawford climbed from the back seat, took a moment to murmur something to his driver, and then strode toward me.
The mayor of Red Valley.
Probably something he’d planned for all along. Everything he’d done had been with an eye toward power. Not that I could complain. He was doing good things for not only the humans and his city, but for the nonhumans.
For me.
He put people into positions of authority who had the supernaturals’ best interests at heart. The new captain of the police was a woman named Wendy Knight. And she loved supernats. Her girlfriend was a supernat.
They weren’t open about it, Amias had told me, but someday they would be.
I hadn’t spoken to Crawford since the night of the rifter battle. I hadn’t been alone with him. I’d barely looked at him. He hadn’t forced the issue. He hadn’t even tried to talk to me.
But now there he was.
He stood in front of me, his hands at his sides, calm and quiet. Deep in his gaze was a spark of horror.
I smiled, slowly, to see it.
I wasn’t sure why.
He cleared his throat, his gaze flitting from my scars to the tangle of thick hair that hung over my face. “Trinity?”
I simply watched him.
He looked good. The bags under his eyes had shrunk, the lines on his face were softer, and even under the cold streetlights I could see he was less pale. He was even a little less grim.
“I came to see you when Amias…” He hesitated. “When he brought you out of the ground. They wouldn’t let me in and I didn’t want to insist.” He rubbed his chin, then crossed his arms and glanced around the area, probing the shadows with a cop’s stare.
He paused on the dark, bulky shadow of the half-giant, who stood watch in the alley across the street. Most people would not have noticed him.
“It’s only Leo,” I said.
He nodded. “I know.” Again, he cleared his throat. “I brought flowers to the master’s house,” he blurted, then, “Hell, this is awkward.”
I said nothing, but the beginnings of a soft curiosity grew inside me.
He clenched his fists. “Are you even in there? Is that you, Trinity?”
I shrugged. “Yes.”
He snorted. “Sure it is. I want to tell you I’m glad you’re alive. That I missed you. That I’m sorry you had to allow the rifters to tear you to pieces.”
We stared at each other, neither of us looking away. “I wanted to thank you,” he continued, his voice soft, “for saving our lives.”
“You’re welcome.”
He shook his head. “Do you care, Trinity? At all? Or are you just…”
“Dead inside?” I grinned.
He went pale and took a small step away from me, unable, perhaps, to understand my insensitivity.
I reached out to touch his arm, but dropped my hand when he flinched.
Guilt and anger flashed through his eyes. “God, Trinity. I’m sorry. Everything you’ve gone through and I…”
“You aren’t hurting my feelings,” I assured him.
“Because you don’t have any? You stand there smiling and talking and nodding, but your eyes don’t change. There’s no life in them.”
I thought for a second that he might cry, but he straightened his spine and slid his hand into his suit jacket pocket.
“Is this what you want?” he asked. “To live as a vampire?”
“Are you offering to end me?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
All around us the night went on as normal, with pedestrians and honking horns and the swish of tires. But suddenly everything else faded and there was only the two of us.
“You can’t kill me,” I told him, my voice rough. “Not even a hunter could kill me.” Then I pressed my fingers to my chest, unsure. How did I know a hunter couldn’t kill me? I knew it. Without a doubt, I knew it.
“If I take your heart and your head,” he murmured. “You will die.”
“If you so much as twitch, I will take your head,” Leo said, appearing suddenly behind the captain. He wrapped his fingers around Crawford’s arm and eased his hand from his pocket. “You won’t want to come near her again until you get that shit out of your mind.”
Frank held up his hands, both empty. He turned to Leo. “You want her to suffer?”
Leo frowned, puzzled. “She’s our Trinity. She’s not a zombie you can put down on the street.”
I paid little attention to either of them. The night was waning and I had yet to feed. My constant hunger was growing larger. More painful. It wore me down.
Crawford wasn’t wrong. I was suffering.
“There’s no one in there,” Frank said, and they both turned to look at me. “Trinity would never want to be this way. You know she wouldn’t.”
“She’s different.” Leo’s voice rumbled into the darkness, making me shiver with need. “She’d have to be. But she’s still behind those eyes.”
A quick spark of anger shot through me. “Shut up, both of you. I’m here, assholes.” I thumped my chest. “I’m here.”
They looked at each other.
“Assholes,” I muttered.
“See?” Leo said. “She’ll be fine.”
“Yeah,” Crawford murmured, unconvinced. And fighting his reluctance, his distaste,
even, he reached out to touch me.
And my attention turned from Leo to the captain. To the scent of his humanness, the sound of his blood, the salt in his subtle sweat.
I wanted all of it.
“You should go, Captain,” I said. “My control is not good and the only thing I want to do right now is you.” I flashed my fangs at him, but I wasn’t playing. I wasn’t trying to scare him.
I suddenly wanted to bite Crawford more than I’d ever wanted anything.
I was so hungry, and he was so…fresh. His blood would be warm and wonderful as it slid into my mouth, creamy with fear, his pulse fluttering like a bird’s wings against my lips. An addict had never needed a fix more than I needed the captain’s blood.
Giving myself permission to think about it made it a thousand times more intense.
I wanted his blood, and he was there, teasing me. Tempting me.
“I’m hungry,” I murmured.
There was no reason I shouldn’t take what I needed. Yes, the master would punish me.
But it’d be worth it.
It would be so worth it.
I reached for the captain.
His eyes widened the second before I touched him, but that wasn’t what kept me from getting to him. What stopped me was a scream, a gunshot, and a human falling dead to the pavement across the street.
The half-giant grabbed me into his arms and folded himself protectively over my body as Crawford crouched and reached for a gun that wasn’t there.
The drama unfolding around me didn’t faze me. Leo’s proximity did.
He held me in his arms and I inhaled, pulling his scent deep into my lungs. His smell was…indescribable. It sent shockwaves through my brain and scrambled my thoughts, and even as the few human pedestrians screamed and fled in panic, I struck like a snake, bit into Leo’s neck, and began to drink.
Chapter Eight
CROSSROADS
Oh, the taste of him.
I didn’t just taste his blood. I tasted him. His magic, his power, his sweetness, and there, hiding beneath the rest, I found his darkness.
And it was good.
His blood filled me up, completed me, made me something closer to whole.
I was going to kill him, because I hadn’t the strength or sense to stop eating. In his blood was paradise, and I could not stop. Would not.
